Solarez - vinyl ester epoxy UV-cure resin. “An extremely tough, corrosion-resistant resin with great adhesion. It is the base resin in our solarez extreme putty.” Vinyl ester epoxy? Anyone have any experience with this? Thanks, Eric J
PS: The specs indicate that in contains acetone… is this really epoxy?
No. For some reason some companies call vinylester an “epoxy vinylester resin”. It’s confusing. I remember a while back there was a big discussion and lots of confusion in a boatbuilding newsgroup about Dow’s Derakane Vinylester. Some people thought it was epoxy since it said so on the conatiner, but couldn’t be further from it. There IS some legitimacy to the claim that it’s an epoxy however, but it has something to do with chemistry that I can’t pretend to be able to explain. Basically, it isn’t the glorious two-part epoxy we know and love.
Rats! - thought I was onto somthing here. Thanks Anton Eric
The backbone to a Bis A Vinyl Ester is the same as a Bis A Epoxy. Anton doesn’t have a clue to what he is talking about and is giving out misinformation. Yes they work differently than an 2 part Epoxy system. They are catalysed with an MEKP or BPO type of hardner system (or in this case UV cure resin) There are positives and negatives to a Vinyl Ester compared to a standard Epoxy system. For instance they use styrene, creating VOC’s (Negative) and they can typically see much higher heats than a room temp epoxy, around 250 F (Positive) A putty made with a Vinyl Ester will make a bomber patch. Duratec makes a mold repair putty that can see 300F and is stronger than shit. Ive used it for surfboard repair a few times, but it isn’t cheap and it, like all Vinyl Esters, yellows quickly in the sun. Sluggo
Thanks Sluggo. Good info… I was hoping to lam an xps board with the stuff… but it would kill the foam (according to the solarez folks). I’ll hang on to it for reparis and maybe fin molds/castings. Something I’d like to try. Eric J
“The backbone to a Bis A Vinyl Ester is the same as a Bis A Epoxy. Anton doesn’t have a clue to what he is talking about and is giving out misinformation.” You just proved exactly what I said. Mr. Sluggo, please go back and read my post. I didn’t say anything negative about Vinylester. I simply stated that it was NOT the type of epoxy that I was assuming Eric thought it was. I don’t know everything, but I DO believe I have a CLUE. As stated previously, I couldn’t explain exactly why the two differed using chemistry and citing hard facts, but thank you very much for clearing things up and disrespecting me at the same time. Basically, they aren’t the same and I would like for anyone on here to stand up and tell me that vinylester catalyzed with MEKP and Resin Research or System Three epoxy is the same thing. I wasn’t giving out misinformation. Eric simply wanted to know if he’d found some next generation resin, when in fact all he had was vinylester. I think it’s bullshit when a boatbuilder goes looking for epoxy, finds a container that says vinylester epoxy on it, and buys it. It has happened, and I’m sure your explanation of Bis A backbone wouldn’t help their situation a single bit. Vinylester and epoxy may be cousins early in life, but they are not the same product.